iPhone 7: Apple to do away with the headphone jack and the screen on its new smartphone

Apple’s new iPhone 7 smartphone will not have a headphone jack or a screen, said the manufacturer in a press release.

It’s no secret that the US Group, Apple has never been shy about discarding old technologies. The demise of the headphone jack and the screen is part of a long-standing quest to produce ever thinner, sleeker devices. Indeed, some of us can still remember the stir caused among users by the announcement of the discarding of floppy disk drives on the first iMac and then the disappearance of USB connectors on the new MacBook. Despite a few dissenting voices, however, most users very quickly accepted the manufacturer’s technological innovations.

It has to be said that, despite its obvious usefulness, the headphone jack’s round shape and rather large diameter of 3.5 mm has proven to be a millstone in the race towards ever sleeker smartphones. Getting rid of it would allow thinner phones to be produced. The same goes for the screen which represents an insurmountable technological barrier to the production of flexible, bendable devices.

Apple can afford such an obsession over sleekness given the American company’s extraordinary influence in the new technologies industry, nurtured by the loyalty of its users, their dependency on its closed ecosystem and the willingness of other manufacturers to follow suit in order to steal its customers.

It has so far always been followed by both its users and its competitors.